Asimov's SF, October-November 2011 Read Free Page B

Check out The Great Steampunk Debate [ greatsteampunkdebate.com ], which is the archive of an online “discussion on ideology, beliefs, politics, ethics, and how all of these things intersect with steampunk.” This exchange took place in May 2010. Among the subjects “debated” were the politics of steampunk, its relationship to the world of the nineteenth century that it mirrors, with emphasis on issues of gender, race, class, and industrialization, and the existence—or failure—of a center that could hold its various subgroups together. Lest this sound like some academic colloquium, recall that that this took place on the internets, where the niceties of civilized discourse are rarely observed. Despite the fact that the noise to signal ration was definitely skewed toward clamor, it's worth skimming over the rants to find the quiet voices of reason. What I was able to glean from the debate was that different populations were attracted to the idea of steampunk for different reasons. Some were readers, some were media fans. Some were Makers, some were goths on the rebound. Some wanted just want to have fun, some want to change the world.
    So what's wrong with that?
    Nothing, of course. But to return to literary concerns, traditional SF writers have expressed misgivings about a subgenre that resolutely turns its back on our sometimes bewildering future to fixate on a period of history, which, while simpler, was filled with horrors that we are lucky to have escaped. Charles Stross made this case on his blog[ antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html ]:
If the past is another country, you really wouldn't want to emigrate there. Life was mostly unpleasant, brutish, and short; the legal status of women in the UK or US was lower than it is in Iran today: politics was by any modern standard horribly corrupt and dominated by authoritarian psychopaths and inbred hereditary aristocrats: it was a priest-ridden era that had barely climbed out of the age of witch-burning, and bigotry and discrimination were ever popular sports: for most of the population starvation was an ever-present threat.
    At the end of his essay he asks, “what would a steampunk novel that took the taproot history of the period seriously look like?"
    Scott Westerfeld gave a testy reply [ scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2010/11/genre-cooties ] in which he details a number of thoughtful essays by steampunk aficionados dealing with the very issues Stross raises. And as for the novel that takes an unflinching look at the Dickensian side of steampunk, he suggests Cherie Priest's popular Boneshaker [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boneshaker(novel) ].After pointing out that science fiction—specifically space opera—is not without the sin of under-examined assumptions, he strikes what might be considered a low blow at critics like Stross: “And yes, this is about YOU being OLD, steampunk-haters. (In spirit, not in years.)” Ouch!
    Speaking of Cherie Priest, if you are looking for a passionate, intelligent, and knowledgeable explanation of what steampunk is all about, click over to her essay Steampunk: What it is, why I came to like it, and why I think it'll stick around [ theclockworkcentury. com/?p=165 ]. She elaborates on two persuasive reasons: “(1). Steampunk comes from a philosophy of salvage and customization, and (2). Steampunk's inherent nature is participatory and inclusive, yet subversive."
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    If you are expecting some grand pronouncement on these matters, stop reading here. Like my friend and editor Sheila Williams [ asimovs.com/201104-05/editorial.shtml ], I am of two minds on this subject. I definitely get uncomfortable when critics of steampunk go after it for being escapist—a calumny that has been used to marginalize SF since Gernsback's days. Clearly, in the hands of writers like Priest and Powers, steampunk deserves to be taken seriously. And even those aspects of steampunk that are more playful than thoughtful